An AI-developed drug appeared to make patients biologically younger in a clinical trial

Some patients saw biological-age estimates fall by several years after just four weeks

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What just happened? As we all know, we're still waiting for the cancer cure people said AI would bring. However, an AI-generated drug has shown signs of a different breakthrough: slowing the aging process. There's a catch, naturally: changes in aging markers don't prove we'll soon be living to 150.

The experimental drug, rentosertib, comes from Insilico Medicine and was developed to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that progressively scars the lungs.

According to the company, AI helped identify its target, a protein called TNIK, and design the molecule that inhibits it.

Now, a study published September 7 in Nature Biotechnology has revisited data from a phase 2a trial involving 71 patients in China. The aging analysis covered 42 participants, with an average age of about 67, whose blood samples were tracked over 12 weeks.

Researchers applied six aging clocks – computational models that use blood proteins to estimate biological age or mortality risk. All six detected shifts toward younger predicted ages among treated patients, while placebo recipients showed little change or slight increases.

The results weren't identical across doses or measurements. At week four, patients taking 60mg daily showed reductions of roughly 2.7 to 3.5 years on four chronological-age clocks. The two mortality-based clocks didn't show significant changes. Taking 30mg twice daily produced the most consistent signal overall.

Before anyone starts planning an extra century of retirement, those figures describe model predictions. The researchers acknowledge that they can't fully separate effects on aging from improvements in lung disease. Establishing whether the drug benefits people without that condition will require further research.

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It was reported last year that scientists had developed blood tests that estimate how quickly individual organs are aging. Such tools could help identify disease risks, but younger-looking test results still need to translate into meaningful health benefits.

Insilico has already announced a phase 3 trial targeting lung disease, expected to enroll 320 participants and measure changes in lung function over 52 weeks. The company says rentosertib remains investigational and has not received regulatory approval.

The findings also arrive amid some AI-based longevity optimism. Futurist Peter Diamandis previously predicted that the key to living longer is to make it into the 2030s, then let AI take it from there.

There's also Bryan Johnson, the man whose quest to live forever was turned into a Netflix documentary. He'll likely be paying close attention to reports on rentosertib, having long talked about how AI-developed drugs will increase human lifespans.

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